Читать книгу Map of the Heart - Сьюзен Виггс - Страница 10

Camille walked home, feeling slightly better after the village social time and two dark-and-stormies. Julie’s light was on upstairs, and Camille could see her through the window, staring at her computer screen, which seemed to be her main channel for socializing these days. Camille hoped the self-isolation was just a phase. She intended to restrict Julie’s screen time, but at the moment she didn’t feel up to a fight.

She let herself in and put down her things. The film was still in the sink along with the shot glasses. She tidied up, trying to shake off the residue of the day. So she’d lost a client. It happened, and now it was done, and the world had not come to an end.

Thanks for nothing. Finnemore was a jerk, she thought, blowing up at her like that. Sure, she’d let him down, but that was no reason for him to rip into her the way he had. Good-looking guys thought they could get away with being mean. She was mad at herself for being attracted to him, and for letting his temper tantrum bug her.

A car’s headlights swept across the front of the house, and crushed shells crackled under its tires. She glanced at the clock—nine P.M.—and went out onto the porch, snapping on the light. Her heart flipped over. Mr. Ponytail Professor was back.

“Did you forget something?” she asked when he got out of the car.

“My manners,” he said.

What the …? “Pardon me?”

“Do you drink wine?” he asked.

“Copiously. Why do you ask?”

He held out a bottle of rosé, the glass beaded with sweat. “A peace offering. It’s chilled.”

She checked the label—a Domaine de Terrebrune from Bandol. “That’s a really nice bottle.”

“I got it from a little wine shop in the village.”

She nodded. “Grand Crew. My father was one of their suppliers. He’s retired now.”

“He was in the wine business, then.”

“He owned an import and distributing firm up in Rehoboth. And why are we having this conversation?”

“I came back to apologize. I got halfway across the bridge and started feeling bad for yelling at you, so I turned around and came back.”

She caught herself staring at him like a smitten coed with a crush on her professor. She flushed, trying to shake off the gape-mouthed attraction. “Oh.” An awkward beat passed. “Would you like to come in?” She held open the door.

“Thought you’d never ask.”

In the kitchen, she grabbed some glasses and a corkscrew. What was he doing back here? “Actually, you did forget something—your sunglasses.” She handed them over.

“Oh, thanks.” He opened the wine and poured, and they brought their glasses to the living room and sat together on the sofa. He tilted his glass toward her. “So … apology accepted?”

She took a sip of the wine, savoring the cool, grapefruity flavor of it. “Apology accepted. But I still feel bad about your film.”

“I know. You made a mistake. I should have been more understanding.” He briefly touched her arm.

Okay, so maybe he wasn’t such a jerk. She stared at her arm where he had touched it. Why was this stranger, whose one-of-a-kind film she’d ruined, taking care of her? Watching him, she tried to figure it out. “I’ve never screwed up a project like that,” she said.

“So what happened?”

“Everything was going fine until I got a phone call from the local hospital that my daughter had been brought in by ambulance. I dropped everything and ran out the door.”

“The girl I met earlier? Oh, man. Is she all right?”

“Yes. Yes, Julie’s fine. She’s upstairs now, online—her favorite place to be.”

“So what was the emergency?”

“She was in a surf rescue class—most kids around here take it in ninth grade. She hit her head and got caught in a riptide.” A fresh wave of panic engulfed Camille as she pictured what could have happened.

“Thank God she’s okay.”

Camille nodded, hugging her knees to her chest. “I was so scared. I held myself together until … well, until you showed up. Lucky you, getting here just in time for my meltdown.”

“You should have said something earlier. If I’d known you rushed off because you got a call about your kid, I wouldn’t have been such a tool.” He offered a half smile that made her heart skip a beat.

At least he acknowledged that he’d been a tool. “Well, thanks for that, Professor Finnemore.”

“Call me Finn.”

She took another sip of wine, eyeing him over the rim of her glass. “You look like a Finn.”

“But not a Malcolm?”

“That’s right. Malcolm is totally different.”

He grinned, flashing charm across the space between them. “How’s that?”

“Well, buttoned down. Academic. Bow tie and brown oxfords.”

He laughed aloud then. “You reduced me to a cliché, then.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“Want to know how I pictured you?” Without waiting for an answer, he rested his elbow on the back of the sofa and turned toward her. “Long dark hair. Big dark eyes. Total knockout in a red striped shirt.” He chuckled at her expression. “I checked out your website.”

Oh. Her site featured a picture of her and Billy on the “about us” link. But a knockout? Had he really said knockout? He was probably disappointed now, because on this particular night, she didn’t look anything like the woman in that photo.

“You look just like your photo,” he said.

Wait. Was he coming on to her? No. No way. She should have looked at his website. Did history professors have websites?

She saw something flicker across his face, an expression she couldn’t read.

“Go ahead,” he said. “You can look me up on your phone. You know you want to.”

She flushed, but did exactly that, tapping his name on the screen. The information that populated the web page surprised her. “According to these search results, you’re a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a former intelligence officer. You’re now a professor of history at Annapolis, renowned for tracing the provenance of lost soldiers and restoring the memories to their families. You’re an expert at analyzing old photos.”

“Then we have something in common. If you ever come across something mysterious in a picture, I can take a look.”

She couldn’t decide if his self-confidence was sexy or annoying. In the “personal” section of the page, it was noted that he had been married to “award-winning journalist Emily Cutler” for ten years, and was now divorced. She didn’t read that part aloud.

“I’m renowned? You don’t say.” He shifted closer to her and peered at the screen.

“I don’t. Wikipedia says. Is it accurate?”

“More or less.” He grinned. “I don’t know about the ‘renowned’ part. I’ve never done anything of renown. Maybe choosing this exceptional wine. Cheers.” He touched the rim of his glass to hers and took a sip. “So your father was in the business.”

“He’s an expert. Grew up in the south of France.”

“Then we have something else in common. I’ve been working in France. Teaching at Aix-Marseille University in Aix-en-Provence.”

“Papa was born in that area—a town called Bellerive. It’s in the Var—do you know it?”

“No, but I’ve driven along the river Var, and down to the coast. It’s fantastic, relatively unspoiled by tourists,” he said. “Vineyards, lavender, and sunshine. Do you visit often?”

“I’ve never been.”

“Seriously? You have to go. No one’s life is complete until they’ve gone to the south of France.”

She didn’t want to discuss the matter with him. “Then I’ll have to make sure I live for a very long time.”

“I’ll drink to that.” He surveyed the tall glass case across the room. “You collect cameras?”

“I do. I started taking pictures as soon as I figured out what a camera was, and then I found an old Hasselblad at a flea market that turned out to be a treasure. I taught myself photography with it. That got me interested in the old ones.”

Camille could not remember the first time she’d held a camera in her hands or the first time she’d peered through an eyepiece, but the passion she felt for taking pictures felt new every day. Her passion had died with Jace, and she hadn’t photographed anything since. “I figured out how to restore a camera mostly by trial and error. Lots of error. Lots of late nights bent over a magnifying work lamp, but I love it. Billy’s father worked in the film industry, developing daily rushes, and when we were kids, he showed us the old techniques and equipment to process expired film.”

“So are those pictures your work?” He indicated the two unusual, angular shots of the Bethany Point Light.

“One of them is. I found some old, undeveloped film in a camera, which is pretty much my favorite thing, coaxing images back to life. That shot was taken during a storm in 1924, and I found it so striking that I replicated it myself.” Then she blurted out, “I don’t take pictures anymore. I work in the darkroom on other people’s pictures.”

Her gaze flicked to the vintage Leica in its glass case by the fireplace mantel. It had sat there for five years. No one but Camille remembered the last time she’d used that camera—to take a picture of her husband, moments before he died. She had put the camera away and never touched it again. There was still film in the Leica, a partially exposed roll she had shot that day. Even now, she couldn’t bring herself to develop it.

Several beats of silence passed. She didn’t know why she’d admitted that to this guy. Maybe because she missed it. She used to take pictures, wandering for hours on her travels, a favorite camera thumping against her sternum. She used to disappear into the act of capturing an image, exposing its secrets, freezing a moment. That was all in the past. These days she didn’t go anywhere. She’d photographed Bethany Bay so many times she was numb to its charms and beauty.

“From what I can tell, you’re really talented,” he said. “Why’d you stop taking pictures?”

“Busy with other things, I suppose.” She couldn’t decide how much to elaborate, because she didn’t really know what this was—a social call? An apology? “Mostly contract work in digitizing services.”

“So you work with Billy Church—he’s the guy who referred me to you?”

She wondered about the way he asked the question. Was he curious about whether or not she was available? No. Guys like him didn’t wonder about the status of women like her.

“We’re associates,” she said. “We grew up together here in Bethany Bay. There’s not a lot of money in doing this, so we both have day jobs. Billy is with the National Archives, and I’m the co-owner of a shop in town.”

“You have a shop?”

She nodded. “My mom started a boutique years ago, and we’re partners now.” She noticed that he hadn’t moved his arm from the back of the sofa. “I really wish I could have helped you today,” she added.

“It was a long shot.”

“I specialize in long shots.” She eyed him, wishing fervently that she really did look more like her website photo instead of a worried mom whose day had unraveled. “Did you have an idea of what might be on the film?” She assumed it was something related to his work as a history professor.

He was quiet for a few moments. She started to feel awkward again. Should she not have asked?

He took a swallow of wine. “The initials on the film roll?”

“RAF,” she said, recalling the writing on the yellow-and-black barrel. “Royal Air Force?”

“Richard Arthur Finnemore. My father.”

“Oh. Old family photos?” She winced. In her experience, the most poignant projects were the personal ones. People brought her their mysterious canisters of found film, desperate for one last glimpse of a departed loved one, or an almost forgotten time of life. Restoring those memories gave her a sense of mission, even though, when she showed the results to the client, it often led to tears.

Finn set down his wineglass. He pressed the tips of his fingers together. He had good hands, strong hands, not the sort of soft, manicured hands she pictured for a university professor. “We think it was the last roll he shot before he was listed as missing in action in Cambodia.”

She took a moment to digest this. “Missing … You mean he was fighting in the Vietnam War?”

“He wasn’t fighting, but he was there with a strategy and comm team when he was captured. An intelligence officer and communications specialist.”

“Didn’t the war end in 1973?”

“The Paris peace ended the conflict in Vietnam that year. The cease-fire did not apply to Cambodia and Laos, so the losses there didn’t stop. So my father … he never came back. And I never met him. My mom was pregnant with me when he left.”

She set down her glass and turned slightly to look at him, seeing a different man than the angry stranger who had come blustering into her life this afternoon. What a horrible irony for a soldier to reach the end of a war, only to go missing while the others went home.

Now she realized it was probably no coincidence that Finn’s specialty was finding lost soldiers. Yet he’d never found his own father. “It must have been a nightmare for your family. That’s so sad. Finn, I’m sorry. Even more so now that you’ve told me the provenance of the roll.” She tried to imagine what might have been on that film—the last images Richard Finnemore had shot. “Do you have any other undeveloped film? I mean, I’ve given you no reason to trust me, but if there’s something else, anything, I’d be happy to help.”

He shook his head. “That’s it. My oldest sister found it in a box of his things that’s been in storage for about forty years.”

“Please tell your sister—and all your family—how sorry I am.”

A text message appeared on his phone screen, and he glanced at it. “Speaking of family. That’s my mom telling me to get a haircut tomorrow.”

She wanted to tell him to keep the ponytail. It was wildly sexy. Instead, she asked, “What’s the occasion?”

“My father’s going to be awarded the Medal of Honor.”

“The Medal of Honor. Isn’t that—doesn’t it have to be awarded by the president?”

He nodded. “It’s a White House ceremony.”

“That’s amazing. Finn, what an honor for your family. And I hate myself all over again for letting you down. I wish I could say I’ll make it up to you, but those pictures are lost.”

He offered a fatalistic shrug. “When the ER calls about an emergency with your kid, you get to drop everything.” Then he placed his hands on his knees. “I should probably get going. Big day for my family coming up.”

She walked with him to his car, making sure he had his sunglasses. “Thanks again for the wine,” she said.

“I’ll call you,” he said, turning toward her when they reached the car.

“What?”

“You know. On the phone.”

“Why?”

“So we can make a plan.”

“A plan?” Camille was talking like a monosyllabic idiot.

“We could go to dinner or something. I’m around for a few more days …”

“You mean, like a date?”

“Not like a date. Just a date.”

Her heart flopped over in her chest. “Probably not a good idea.”

“Are you seeing someone?”

“No, but—”

“Skittish, then?”

She smiled. “Right.”

“That’s okay. I’m a lot nicer than I was earlier today. I’ll call you.” He touched her arm. Not in a sexual way. Yet just that brief, casual touch ignited something in her that felt very sexual, taking her completely by surprise.

“Finn, don’t call me, okay? Don’t ask me on a date. I’m … I wouldn’t be good company.”

“How about you let me be the judge of that?”

“Don’t call,” she said again. “Sorry again about the film. Drive carefully.”